Bursting bubbles

MEDITATION

PERHAPS you are familiar with the phrase – living in a bubble. It’s a fairly recent expression which describes our tendency to stay in our comfort zone rather than explore the options beyond our horizons.

There’s the Westminster Bubble where those who populate the world of our national politics can lose perspective because of the rarefied atmosphere in which they live and work. Their bubble is maintained by all of the industries that support the apparatus of government and in that space it’s easy to become divorced from what is happening in the lives of real people in the rest of the country. Holyrood, Washington, Brussels and every seat of power has its bubble – the best leaders ind ways of seeing the world beyond the bubble that would otherwise imprison them.

Then there is what has become known as the Google Bubble. Google knows what you like and all the ‘pop-ups’ you receive will play to your preferences. Your social media diet allows you to enjoy a place where your world view and all of your likes and dislikes are conirmed or affirmed by those who ‘like them’. Contrary views of the world are readily rejected and, if necessary, you can ‘unfriend’ those who offer critical comment.

There are public figures and ordinary people living in their own parallel universes, tweeting and sharing their undiluted wisdom, day by day conirming their own pathology or massaging their own egos. In the world of ‘the bubble’ the message is amplified by the medium, critics are always wrong and the result is the blinkered life. Bubbles can be harmful places to inhabit, harmful for the individuals themselves and harmful for those who end up on the wrong side of someone else’s parallel universe!

Sadly, the world of the church is a perfect environment for blowing bubbles! With enough like-minded people around us and enough dogmas in our armoury, our bubbles can become like fortresses built to defend our version of the truth and exclude both the ideas and the people that might challenge our assumptions. Church life was never meant to be like that; surely the life of faith is a journey of constant discovery and rediscovery. Surely it is a good thing to try seeing the world as others see it, surely there is more good than harm in constructive criticism and the best friends are the ones that help us to “see ourselves as others see us”.

The truth as it is in our bubble cannot be the only version of the truth and beyond our adopted view of the world there are exciting prospects for personal growth and deeper insight.

I think it was Mark Twain who said that the “only essential travel accessory was an open mind”, this truth does not only apply to the adventures we might have in visiting new places and seeing new things; it also applies to our journey in the faith. Don’t let yourself get trapped in any of the bubbles that might restrict your view of the world or of God. Travel with an open and enquiring mind, travel with an open and loving heart, search vigorously for the truth and it will set you free.

“It is not about what we do or about how we do it. Instead, it is about who we are, how we act justly, how we love mercy and how we walk humbly.

Mark Twain certainly did say: “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” For my part it’s the exciting days of discovering why that matters the most – and you won’t find out why if you stay trapped in a bubble.

Most surely Jesus did not live in a bubble. Surrounded as he was by the religiously orthodox, the severely legalistic and the aggression of an oppressive occupier; he was still able to command a world view which was generous and open. He could see beyond Galilee, he could see beyond Jerusalem and he could see a God whose love was as liberal as it was unconditional. Jesus sets the standard for bursting bubbles.

This article appears in the July 2018 Issue of Life and Work

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